global trends in land tenure reform_ch4

4 Cameroon’s community forests program and women’s income generation from non-timber forest productsNegative impacts and potential solutions

Marguerite Belobo Belibi, Judith van Eijnatten, and Nicholas Barber

Introduction

The ! ve and a half decades since independence have witnessed an increasing formalization of land tenure in Cameroon. The country’s 1994 Forestry Law is among the most important pieces of legislation in advancing this process. Building on previous initiatives of sedentarization and land titling, the 1994 law imposed a system of classi! cation that proclaimed state ownership of nearly all Cameroon’s vast forestlands. This legal categorization was at odds with local open access and common property land-tenure regimes, as part of which customary rules and traditional authorities regulated access to forest resources.

The 1994 law does, however, include some provisions for local control over forest resources. Speci! cally, it provides for the establishment of “community forests,” overseen by local management bodies, wherein communities can commercially exploit timber and non-timber forest products (NTFPs). The community forest provisions of the 1994 law, however, lack the " exibility of customary land tenure systems. In addition to greatly circumscribing the extent and type of forest territory that local communities can control, the onerous regulatory requirements imposed by the Forestry Law and related pieces of legislation serve to empower wealthy, educated community members—almost always men—at the expense of women and minorities. This inequality is particularly apparent in community forest management bodies’ focus on timber exploitation, traditionally performed by men, rather than on the commercialization of NTFPs, the collection and processing of which is most often the domain of women.

This chapter traces the impacts of land tenure reforms in Cameroon on local populations in the forestlands of the country’s southeast, with particular attention to the impact of the 1994 Forestry Law on women’s commercialization of NTFPs. The result of a novel collaboration between two staff members of SNV

Global Trends in Land Tenure Reform.indb 74Global Trends in Land Tenure Reform.indb 74 16/01/2015 07:56:5516/01/2015 07:56:55

Cameroon’s community forests program 75

Netherlands Development Organisation, and an anthropologist working on issues of indigenous rights and identity in southeast Cameroon, the chapter draws on the results of a recent SNV project in order to discuss a potential solution to the aforementioned problems. The SNV project demonstrates the ways in which improved local organization and access to market information can help marginalized community members—in particular women—bene! t from the commercial exploitation of NTFPs under the provision of the Forest Law.

Background: changing land and resource tenure in southeast Cameroon

Spanning more than 2 million square kilometers across six Central African countries, the Congo Basin rainforest is the world’s second largest contiguous tropical forest. Along with the Amazon and the rainforests of Southeast Asia, it houses the majority of the world’s biodiversity, and is a vital “carbon sink” regulating the global climate. The forest is also an important economic resource for the countries that it traverses, producing high-quality timber and other goods for export. For populations living in and around the forest, NTFPs provide food, water, shelter, and medicine. The forest also has important cultural and spiritual signi! cance for local communities, especially for indigenous groups such as the Baka and Bagyeli (sometimes grouped with other, related groups under the label “pygmies,” considered by many to be pejorative).

In Cameroon, the Congo Basin rainforest covers more than 40 percent of the country’s total territory and is home to approximately 2.5 million people out of a national population of 19.5 million (USAID, 2011). The densest portion of the forest, and the majority of forest inhabitants, are located in the southeastern part of the country. This region has, and continues to be, economically and politically marginalized compared to the rest of the country (Ango, 1982; Rupp, 2011).

The population of southeast Cameroon is divided between Bantu agriculturalists and groups such as the Baka, who have traditionally been hunter-gatherers.1 In one survey of a segment of this region, Bantu constituted 60 percent of the population, Baka 25 percent, and traders and other migrants that did not belong to either group 15 percent (Njounan Tegomo et al., 2012: 46). Prior to the colonial era, both Baka and Bantu lived deep in the forest. The Bantu resided in permanent villages, while the Baka were nomadic, moving between temporary settlements in search of game and other forest resources, such as wild yams and honey.

Traditional Baka and Bantu conceptions of property rights involved a mix of “open access” and “common property” regimes. Under open-access regimes “no one has the legal right to exclude anyone from using a resource,” whereas in common property regimes “the members of a clearly demarcated group” have access to a resource, but “exclude non-members of that group from using [it]” (Ostrom and Hess, 2007: 6).

Owing to their nomadism, the Baka have not traditionally had any conception of “ownership” over land. While the Baka did maintain a sense that certain areas


76 Marguerite Belobo Belibi et al.

of the forest were the territory of speci! c bands or kinship groups, these boundaries were " exible, temporary, and porous. Thus, in actuality, Baka were free to exploit forest resources more or less without restriction.

Unlike the Baka, Bantu groups in southeast Cameroon were relatively sedentary, and thus maintained a more ! xed concept of “territory” than the Baka did. Village lands and surrounding cultivated areas were held as common property by entire villages or segments thereof. In spite of this, however, Bantu also considered the majority of uncultivated forest lands to be an open-access resource in which anyone was free to hunt and collect forest products (Nguiffo, 1998: 105). The above-described customary systems of forest land tenure among Baka and Bantu groups in southeast Cameroon did not entail perfect equality between the two groups or among group members. While Baka and Bantu did not consider most forest territory to “belong” to any one group or individual to the exclusion of others, both groups maintained “well-known rules,” governed by traditional systems of authority, which determined who could exploit which forest resources (Nguiffo, 1998: 105). These rules often involved a gendered division of labor. While there were important differences between the two groups, in general men performed hunting activities, while, with some exceptions, women were responsible for the (arguably more onerous) work of gathering and processing NTFPs.

Land-related attitudes and laws in southeast Cameroon began to change in the late nineteenth century, when the country’s German colonial masters undertook a project of road construction and sedentarization for forest populations. While this project was cloaked in expressions of altruism, such as the desire to provide education and health services to rural peoples, the “real objective” likely had more to do with making forest residents “more accessible to the administration for tax collection” and increasing the pool of workers available as forced labor for activities such as rubber collection (Nguiffo, 1998: 105). Given the fact that they already resided in permanent settlements, and thus were both more accessible to government of! cials and more habituated to a sedentary lifestyle, the Bantu were the ! rst to become subject to this projection of colonial authority. Some Bantu communities found themselves alongside newly built roads, while others migrated to roadside areas.2

This period also witnessed a drastic change in the legal status of forest lands. An 1896 imperial decree proclaimed all lands that were not clearly “occupied” to be “vacant and ownerless” and thus property of the German crown. The decree de! ned “occupation” very narrowly, considering only clearly inhabited or cultivated territory to be “occupied.” This excluded vast expanses of forest used by local populations for hunting, gathering and other activities (Nguiffo et al., 2009: 3–4).

The colonial state’s claim of ownership over uncultivated lands would underwrite massive land expropriations over the course of the twentieth century, as the colonial, and later Cameroonian, governments transferred control of the “uncultivated,” “uninhabited” forest commons to private companies (Nguiffo, 1998: 108). At the same time, the sheer expansiveness of the Congo Basin



rainforest rendered it dif! cult for the state to project its authority in remote, dif! cult-to-access areas. In many such locations local populations were able to maintain customary, open-access regimes involving fundamentally different conceptualizations of ownership and territory as compared to state laws (Karsenty, 1999).

Cameroon gained its independence in 1960. Far from abandoning the destructive land policies of the colonial government, the post-colonial state maintained the concept of state ownership of forest lands. Indeed, owing to severe economic problems, “there was a considerable rise in forest resource exports, exploitation and destruction” after independence (Nguiffo, 1998: 108). Cameroon’s primary land law, enacted in 1974, formalized the notion of state ownership of “uncultivated lands.” This law mandated the registration and titling of all privately held lands, with active “occupation” or cultivation a prerequisite for proving landownership. This stipulation “enabled the state to reclaim the bulk of communities’ land as it forbade registration of unexploited land which was under customary ownership” (Nguiffo, Kenfack, and Mballa, 2009: 10).

Given the cost and complexity of obtaining land titles in Cameroon, only a very few local elites have been able to obtain titles and the concomitant rights to commercialize resources extracted from their lands. Today, the vast majority of Cameroonians still do not have a formal title for their land (Ashley and Mbile, 2005: 8). The requirement that landholdings be titled was particularly dis-advantageous for women. While in customary land-tenure systems “different rights to land are distributed among different groups and individuals,” in formal, written, privatized systems, “most land rights are concentrated in the hands of a minority that, due to economic factors, ideology, and the in" uence of powerholders, almost never includes women” (Lastarria-Cornhiel, 1997: 1317).

The 1994 Forestry Law

Cameroon’s 1994 Forestry Law further complicated local communities’ relation to forest lands. Largely drafted by of! cials from the World Bank under the terms of a Structural Adjustment Program, the Forestry Law ostensibly encompassed three principal considerations:

1 Fuelling economic growth through the industrial exploitation of timber;2 Protecting biodiversity;3 Recognizing and guaranteeing popular participation in forest management

and ensuring the distribution of bene! ts from logging and other activities to local communities (Nguiffo et al., 2012: 12).

In reality, however, a number of researchers and civil society organizations have argued that the speci! cs of the law, as well as the fashion of its implementation, have privileged the ! rst of these goals at the expense of the third (Nguiffo et al., 2012: 14).



The Forestry Law divides the entire expanse of Cameroon’s forests into two broad categories: permanent forest estate (PFE)—areas which will be maintained as forest areas (although some “sustainable” logging is permitted); and non-permanent forest estate (NPFE)—areas designated for eventual transformation into agricultural lands (Nguiffo et al., 2012: 23). Each of these categories is further subdivided. The PFE consists of state and commune forest areas (“forêts dominales,” and “forêts communales”). The national government directly manages state forests, which encompass national parks and other protected areas as well as major logging concessions (“unités forestières d’aménagement” or “UFAs”), while local, sub-regional governments manage commune forests. The NPFE consists of community forests (see below), privately held lands, and “national forest domain” (“forêt du domain national”). “National forest domain” areas of! cially belong to the state, but are “largely made up of secondary forest that lacks titles but clearly belongs to individuals, families, and clans” (Ashley and Mbile, 2005: 5). In addition to granting long-term logging UFAs in the PFE, the state often sells short-term “ventes de coupe” logging rights in the national domain forest area. Table 4.1 summarises land classi! cation and rights according to the 1994 forestry law.

Some have viewed this formal categorization of forest lands, and in particular the provision for local management of forest resources through commune and community forests, as empowering local actors vis-à-vis the national government. While the Forestry Law does grant communities the right to manage some forest resources, however, it does not give them formal title to forest lands. Indeed, one of the key aspects of the 1994 Forestry Law is the divorcing of land rights from usage rights. While communities have their rights to use resources in certain segments of the forest formally recognized, the lands on which these resources lie can be expropriated by the state at any time for “vaguely de! ned reasons of ‘public interest’” (OKANI, CED, and FPP, 2013). Furthermore, the recognition of local usage rights applies to subsistence activities only. Any commercialization of forest resources “can only be done in delimited territories and requires special permits” (Nguiffo et al., 2012: 27). Overall, while it appears to involve a devolution of responsibility to local governments and communities, the 1994 Forestry Law maintains the key characteristic of colonial and independence-era policies: the ownership of forests by the state, rather than local people or communities (Nguiffo et al., 2012: 13).


Tab

le 4.

1 La

nd c

lass

i! ca

tion

and

right

s acc

ordi

ng to

199

4 Fo

rest

ry L

aw

Perm

anen

t For

est E

state

(PFE

)N

on-P

erm

anen

t For

est E

state

(NPF

E)

Stat

e fo

rest

Com

mun

e fo

rests

Prot

ecte

d ar

eas

Logg

ing

conc

essio

ns

(UFA

s)C

omm

unity

fore

stsN

atio

nal d

omai

n fo

rest

Priv

ate

land

s

Titl

e ho

lder

(lan

d rig

hts)

Stat

eSt

ate

Stat

e (v

ia su

b-re

gion

al g

ov’t)

Stat

eSt

ate

Indi

vidu

al/

corp

orat

ion

Usa

ge ri

ghts

for

loca

l pop

ulat

ions

?N

o (w

ith so

me

exce

ptio

ns)

Unc

lear

/ var

ies

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Tim

ber a

nd N

TFP

co

mm

erci

al’n

rig

hts f

or lo

cal

popu

latio

ns?

No

No

No

Yes,

with

pro

per

perm

itsN

oN

o



Community forest provisions under the 1994 Forestry Law

In spite of its focus on increasing state pro! ts from timber extraction, the 1994 Forestry Law did contain measures aimed at protecting biodiversity (most importantly a goal of classifying 30% of Cameroon’s territory as protected areas) and at devolving power to local communities. Reacting to World Bank pressure, and in" uenced by a growing trend in the ! eld of international development, which touted the bene! ts of local management of renewable resources such as forests, the government of Cameroon enacted provisions for the establishment of locally managed “community forests” (Karsenty, 1999: 147).

The establishment of a community forest gives participant “communities” (which may comprise one or more villages) exclusive rights to commercialize “all products derived from the forest, including timber, NTFPs, wildlife, and ! sheries” (Ashley and Mbile, 2005: 9). Land rights, however, remain with the state. The law also includes a number of restrictions on the size and location of community forests. Most importantly, all community forests must be situated in the non-permanent forest estate (NPFE). As the NPFE consists primarily of second-growth forest, timber in these areas is of a much lesser value than timber in the PFE. Community forests are also restricted in size to 5,000 hectares, an area “far below the size of what is considered a village forest” according to most customary tenure practices (Nguiffo, 1998: 116). Other forest areas, which were previously managed according to traditional common property or open access regimes, were re-categorized as national domain, state, or commune forests under the jurisdiction of the state. Villagers maintain usage rights in some of these areas, but have no territorial or commercialization rights. According to Phil René Oyono (2010: 124) community forests are thus an example of “the institutionalization of prohibitions and restrictions in access to historically common resources.”

The 1994 Forestry Law and related pieces of legislation also enact a number of bureaucratic requirements for the creation and operation of community forests. In order to apply to create a community forest, a group of villagers must form a “common initiative group” (“groupe d’intérêt communautaire,” or GIC). The GIC is required to have a constitution which “prescribes criteria for membership” (Rupp, 2011: 29). Not all residents of villages bordering a community forest will be members of that forest’s GIC, and thus not all community members have an equal say in management decisions (Nguiffo et al., 2012).

Once established, a GIC must enter into a formal agreement with the national forest service and submit a management plan outlining logging, agriculture, agroforestry, and conservation activities to be undertaken in the community forest (Ashley and Mbile, 2005: 9). The maximum duration of such agreements is 25 years. Further stipulations mandate that any timber exploitation must be “artisanal,” and involve the “manual removal of boards from the forest,” and that any proceeds realized by the GIC from the sale of timber and NTFPs must be reinvested in community-development infrastructure (Ashley and Mbile, 2005: 9). Decisions about what infrastructure to invest in are taken by the GIC. The government also requires a permit in order to transport a forest product (timber and/or NTFP) away from a community forest for commercial sale.



Figure 4.1 Land demarcations near Lomié, Eastern Cameroon.Source: World Resources Institute Atlas Forestier du Cameroun 2012; Projection: WGS 1984 Zone 33 Nord

Establishing a community forest requires signi! cant organizational skills and ! nancial resources. In order to develop a forest management plan, the community is required to map forest boundaries and inventory forest resources, which can take up to two years. A 2009 survey of 20 community forests in Cameroon calculated that the required ! nancial investment for establishing a forest amounted to between US$12,000 and $24,000 (Mbile et al., 2009). In part because of this, in 1999, ! ve years after the promulgation of the Forestry Law, no community forests had yet been legally established (Rupp, 2011: 30). This situation has, however, changed in recent years. By December 2009, 174



community forests had been registered, out of which 135 had signed conventions. The attributed forests covered 620,000 hectares and included 340 villages (Mbile et al., 2009). Figure 4.1 shows demarcations for land classi! ed in different categories, including community forests, near Lomié in East Cameroon.

The Cameroonian government framed the community forests provision of the 1994 Forestry Law as a way to “revive traditional and endogenous common management institutions” (Nguiffo, 1998: 116). While not completely egalitarian, these local institutions were nevertheless seen as more democratic and inclusive than state-centered, “top-down” approaches. “Decentralization is expected to give marginalized groups more in" uence on local policy and forest resource management because open, participatory decision-making works in favour of equality” (Bandiaky and Tiani, 2010: 144). Perhaps because of this logic, the community forest sections of the 1994 Forestry Law do not include any speci! c provisions for the equitable representation of women and minorities such as the Baka in GICs, nor for the equitable distribution of bene! ts from community forest activities (Assembe Mvondo, 2006: 687).

Unfortunately, while, in some cases local residents have succeeded in establishing community forests, often with the aid of national or international NGOs, there has also been a major problem of “elite capture,” wherein “elites with political connections,” who often have only a distant relation to the local community, control community forest GICs (Leonhardt, 2006: 93–4 n. 6). The cost and complexity of the process for establishing a community forest has the effect of advantaging better educated and politically connected community members (usually Bantu men) at the expense of less educated, less connected individuals (women and Baka). Compounding this problem of elite capture, there is often weak oversight relating to the requirement that community forest pro! ts be reinvested in development projects. Most community forests thus operate without full community participation, and with low levels of transparency and accountability. Bene! t sharing is low, and a predominantly male elite captures the majority of rents and pro! ts (Assembe Mvondo, 2006).

Gender, community forests, and NTFPs

A recent report by the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF) (Karpe et al., 2013) identi! ed “the persistence of a grave situation of discrimination” against women in rural areas in Cameroon “especially concerning access and management of land and forests” (1). Indeed, there is persistent underrepresentation of women and Baka on community forest GICs (with Baka women thus being doubly marginalized).

According to a 2006 study (Tobith and Cuny, 2006), while women do attend meetings related to the establishment of community forests, their numbers tend to be greatly inferior as compared to men. The same study also shows that women’s in" uence in the community forest decision-making process remains weak, especially in relation to the election of the executive members of the community forest GIC. When women obtain executive positions themselves, it is often in



the role of treasurer or cashier, a post that is typically thought to be “women’s work” and which entails little formal decision-making power. This limited presence of women in community forest management committees means that their needs and interests are less likely to be taken into account during the creation and implementation of forest management plans.

Community forest GICs’ emphasis on the exploitation of timber, as opposed to NTFPs, is both a reason for and a product of women’s marginalization and underrepresentation on these committees. Men traditionally manage timber-related activities, which are usually more ! nancially lucrative than NTFP exploitation. Men often consider NTFP harvesting to be a women’s affair and thus of secondary importance. This gendered division of responsibility when it comes to forest resources, combined with community forest management committees’ focus on timber at the expense of NTFPs, further reduces women’s in" uence in decisions regarding the utilization of community forest revenues (Tobith and Cuny, 2006). While NTFP harvesting has a place in the Forestry Law, the law too focuses much more heavily on timber exploitation. Although less pro! table than timber exploitation, however, NTFP collection and sales nevertheless constitute an important income strategy for women and their families.

Generally, NTFP collection by women involves gathering fruits and seeds from the forest " oor. Depending on the biodiversity of the forest, the product sought, and the quantities desired, a trip to the forest might take a few hours or several days. A longer excursion would involve overnight camping—often with primary processing, such as the removal of seeds from fruits—taking place in the forest in order to reduce the weight of product that has to be carried. The work is heavy: women must penetrate the forest with cutlasses, sometimes for signi! cant distances, wearing little protective clothing and carrying basic supplies. The work also carries a high risk of injuries through accidents, attacks by wild animals, or losing one’s way. Good knowledge of the forest, the location of resources, and their seasonal availability are important attributes for successful NTFP collection. Woman may work individually or in groups. Collection groups can be ethnically homogeneous or mixed. In areas where Baka and Bantu live in proximity, Bantu may seek the services of Baka, not only as guides but also as labor to collect and/or process the product. The collected NTFPs are most often destined for local consumption, thus contributing substantially to food accessibility and security. Other NTFPs have medicinal properties or are used to ful! ll other basic needs.

Structural obstacles to women’s commercialization of NTFPs

According to Section 8 of the 1994 Forestry Law, forest communities are entitled “to collect all forest, wildlife, and ! sheries products freely for their personal use, except protected species” (emphasis added). While the law is thus fairly liberal in permitting subsistence activities, it is very restrictive when it comes to the commercialization of NTFPs. Commercial sales of NTFPs require that the seller obtain a permit, quota, or have an agreement with the Ministry of Forests (Ingram,



2014). In order to obtain a permit, the seller must navigate multiple levels of bureaucracy, spread across several government bodies. This process can often take several months to a year. Furthermore, in terms of cost, NTFP commercialization permits do not differentiate between local, small-scale sales by collectors and large-scale commercialization by companies and syndicates. The high transaction costs involved in obtaining these permits thus work to the disadvantage of local populations, favoring those with suf! cient political and economic power to gather the necessary paperwork and follow up their dossier in the capital (Mbile et al., 2009). Further exacerbating this inequality, NTFP harvesters are often ill informed about permit requirements. As part of a 2014 study, for instance, 95% of Cameroonian NTFP harvesters interviewed were uninformed about the permitting system and legal harvest rights (Ingram, 2014: 117).

Given the dif! culty of obtaining commercialization permits, most NTFP collectors must choose between selling their products to middlemen (“buyum-sellum”), or transporting their products without the proper paperwork from supply zones to market. The latter option leaves NTFP collectors open to unscrupulous gendarmes, police, forest guards, and custom agents, who may demand the payment of informal fees or “taxes” in return for allowing goods to pass through various checkpoints. According to a recent study (Ingram, 2011) there were an average of 22 roadblocks and checkpoints between southwest Cameroon and major markets in Nigeria, and ten between collection zones in the Littoral region and major markets in the city of Douala. The high prevalence of corruption thus creates signi! cant costs during transport to market. For instance, Awono et al. (2013: 11) estimate that the cost of corruption for bush mango transported from source zones in southern Cameroon constitutes 33% of total transportation costs.

The above-described situation renders it nearly impossible for NTFP collectors, who are predominantly poor women, to operate within the law. Large-scale NTFP commercialization is instead left to wealthy traders who are able to purchase permits and operate teams of middlemen to buy and transport products from supply zones to major markets. During the harvesting season, these middlemen go door-to-door to buy products, imposing prices that are far below market value. Women are forced to accept the prices proposed by the middlemen for a number of reasons: First, NTFP prices are volatile and women are uninformed of market prices. Second, the collection season for the majority of NTFPs follows a period of food insecurity between December and June (van Eijnatten and Belobo Belibi, 2013), and coincides with the beginning of the school year (early September). This means that women selling NTFPs are often short of money to purchase food and/or pay school fees for their children.

A lack of market transparency also inhibits trade. Information for potential customers regarding locations, volumes, and quality of products and regularity of supply is not available. Community suppliers lack information about customers and are unable to rate and appropriately price and grade their products. A lack of regular, reliable customers causes NTFPs to degrade and rot and thus become unmarketable.



Potential solutions: community organization and market information

Improved local organization and market information-sharing between communities and potential customers represents one potential solution to empower local community NTFP collectors to overcome some of the dif! culties discussed above. The remainder of this chapter discusses one such effort, undertaken by SNV Netherlands Development Organisation in community forests in the South and East regions of Cameroon. The project took place between 2007 and 2013 and targeted 20 community forests in three principal geographic areas: six community forests in and around Yokadouma in the East region; nine community forests in and around Lomié, also in the East; and ! ve forests in and around Djoum, in the South region.

The SNV project took a value chain approach, focusing on improving organization among local women NTFP collectors, boosting product quality and value addition of products, increasing transparency through market information on prices and product availability, and establishing commercial linkages between collectors and traders.

To build local capacity, SNV provided training on improved collection and processing techniques for speci! c NTFPs, including bush mango, njansang, koutou, ebaye, cola, and talala. The training also included modules on responding to market demand, grading product quality, understanding the “purchase tricks” of middlemen, standardizing units of measurement, and using spring balances for weighing products. The training employed a “trickle-down” approach. SNV held an initial training with a core of “group trainers,” who then transferred the skills they had acquired to local “collections groups.”

At its base, the SNV project organized women into local “collection groups” (CGs). It was important that women became organized at the lowest level because NTFP collection and processing is tedious, labor-intensive, and time-consuming. Working in a group meant that women stimulated and motivated each other and thus were able to increase their production. The formation of community collections groups also allowed women to “bulk” their products, constituting large stocks, which had the effect of decreasing dependency on middlemen and encouraging the building of direct and fair commercial relationships with wholesalers.

Collection groups in the same and neighboring villages were then brought together in “collection group networks” (CGNs). These networks aimed to promote collaboration and organization at a higher level, and also served to facilitate group sales. Representatives from the CGs met regularly at the level of their network to monitor the evolution of the bulking process in the different groups. The meetings helped to generate a spirit of competition between the groups regarding the amount and quality of product collected.

The NCFO, or Network of Community Forest Organizations, occupied the highest level of the project organizational schema. The NCFO had a designated person (focal point) to support NTFP commercialization. It helped to identify and develop relationships with traders in towns and cities, surveyed the market for prices, assisted in the building of capacity for organizing group sales, and provided support in price negotiations if the CGNs so desired. Figure 4.2 shows the basic structure of NTFP commercialization networks as described here.



NCFOwith NTFP focal point

CGN CGN

CG CG CG CG

Figure 4.2 Basic structure of NTFP commercialization networks.

NCFOs met regularly with the CGNs to support and guide their work. At the end of a season the NCFOs compiled the information from the collection group registers, which provided insight into the total quantities of products extracted from the forest, the quantities/qualities sold, the prices, and the total income generated. This information allowed NCFOs and CGNs to begin planning for the following NTFP season.

For organizing the collective sales it was important that CGNs and buyers reach a consensus on the type, quality, and quantity of NTFPs to be traded, the unit of measurement to be used, and the price, date, and place of the sale. If there were two or more sales on the same day in different villages, it was also important that the CGNs and the NCFOs ensured that the same prices and units of measurement were applied in both instances.

To improve transparency, the project designed a market information system (MIS) based on communications technologies accessible to both collectors and traders. Several towns in the project area had community radio stations. These stations could broadcast over distances of up to 30 kilometers and were widely listened to by NTFP collectors living in forest areas, as well as traders living in town centers.

The MIS functioned as follows: CGNs collected and compiled information on NTFP supply, including the volume and quality of products available for sale, as well as contact details for sellers. They then transmitted this information by mobile phone to the NTFP focal point. The NTFP focal point compiled information from different community forests and transmitted it to the radio station by Internet.

Traders followed a similar procedure, transmitting information on market demand, including the volume and quality of NTFPs they were willing to purchase, by mobile phone to the radio station. The radio station then broadcast the information on a weekly basis. Collectors and traders could listen to the



broadcast and obtain the information they needed to contact one another and to negotiate commercial deals. The MIS thus gradually reduced reliance on middlemen.

Project results

During the SNV project, incomes from NTFP collection rose dramatically. While collectors reported that, in previous years, incomes from NTFPs had been so low as to be almost negligible, during the NTFP seasons of 2011 in Yokadouma and 2012 in Lomié and Djoum, for instance, 765 (out of 817) collectors participating in the project earned a total of €94,468, for an average income of €123 per collector.

While this ! gure represents an important increase, however, it masks signi! cant differences between different genders and ethnicities. Most importantly, while women constituted 91% of project participants, the few male participants earned signi! cantly higher incomes. The average income for women was €114, while for men it was €260.

The income disparity between Bantu and Baka participants was even more troubling. The small minority of Baka participants (overall, 96% of collectors were Bantu and 4% were Baka) earned far less than their Bantu counterparts. Baka women earned eight times less than Bantu women (€14 vs €122) and Baka men earned ! fteen times less than Bantu men (€17 vs €270). Thus, while the project did bene! t women (and to a lesser extent Baka), it did so primarily by increasing overall prices and sales of NTFPs, rather than by eliminating ethnic and gender inequalities.

In fact, conversations with project participants indicated that, as NTFP exploitation has become more lucrative, men were increasingly taking up what had traditionally been viewed as “women’s work.” Re" ecting persistent gender inequalities in local communities, men selling NTFPs tended to focus on those goods that were easily processed, leaving products such njansang, for which processing is very labor intensive, to women. More study is needed in order to determine the ways in which future, similar projects can seek to address and counter the above-described inequalities.

In spite of these shortcomings, however, there is no question that the improved commercialization of NTFPs bene! ted local women and their families. Indeed, one principal attraction of income-generation projects for women is that they have a trickle-down bene! t for their families, and in particular their children. Certainly this was the case for the SNV project. Table 4.2 shows the composition of the population bene! ting from project activities. In Lomié and Yokadouma, project activities reached a total of 4833 family members, of whom 30% were female children, 32% male children, 20% women, and 17% men. The average income per bene! ciary worked out to €19.25 per year.



Table 4.2 Make-up of the population, in terms of gender and adult/child (under the age of 16), bene! ting from project activities in the Lomié and Yokadouma areas, as well as overall

Type of bene! ciary Lomié Yokadouma Total averages

No. % No. % No. %

Female child 825 34 643 27 1468 30

Male child 784 32 757 32 1541 32

Female adult 457 19 530 22 987 20

Male adult 379 16 458 19 837 17

Total 2445 100 2388 100 4833 100

Table 4.3 shows how the overall income, earned by project bene! ciaries from NTFP sales, was invested. The project was particularly successful in allowing women the means to pay for their children’s education. For instance, the 306 collectors in Lomié spent 41% of their project income on school uniforms and supplies for their children. This works out to €15.76 per child per year, which is enough to cover the cost of primary education in rural Cameroon. (Primary school education itself is free but the authors estimate the cost of uniforms, books, and occasional extra fees to be around €15/year.)3

Table 4.3 Investment of NTFP income as percentages of total income

Investment of income % of total income

Education 41

Enterprise 20

Food 9

Health 8

Construction 8

Birth of child 3

Kitchen utensils 3

Savings 2

Miscellaneous 6

Community projects 0

Total 100

To gain insight into the contribution of NTFP commercialization to household food security, the project sought to determine the quantity of NTFPs consumed by households as a percentage of the total production. Results from Lomié and Yokadouma indicate that an average of 9% of the NTFPs produced were not commercialized but kept to ensure household food security. This ! gure amounts



to just over one kilogram of NTFPs per person per year. Considering that major NTFPs, such as bush mango and njangsang are not usually stored for longer than four months because their high oil content causes them to spoil quickly, this ! gure implies a daily intake of about 9 grams per person per day for project participants and their families during the four-month season. Most NTFPs are used in the preparation of meals. They supply nutrients and contribute to dietary diversity.

The large number of community members who participated in NTFP collection and commercialization across the project areas demonstrates the relatively low entry barriers to the NTFP market once collectors are organized and market access is established. Indeed, many project participants indicated that NTFP commercialization was more attractive to them than was timber commercialization as the latter requires long and expensive bureaucratic procedures, capital, sophisticated equipment, and skilled labor. Because of these barriers, community forests often abandon timber exploitation projects before completion. Furthermore, as previously mentioned, when community forests do succeed in selling timber the bene! ts are often limited to a select, elite group. In the current context, despite the shortcomings in the legal provisions of the Forestry Law, NTFP commercialization as a micro-industry, is capable of providing signi! cant incomes to a wider group of community members.

Interestingly, none of the project income was allocated to community development projects as prescribed by the community forest section of the Forestry Law. While this may re" ect, on the one hand, the weak enforcement of the law, it also demonstrates the lack of congruence between the law and prevailing customs and habits in forest areas, where women have traditionally collected NTFPs for household food security rather than as a means of realizing community development goals.

Conclusion

The SNV project allowed NTFP collectors to greatly improve their bargaining position in the NTFP value chain. Women are now producing more NTFPs, of better quality, and are demanding and receiving higher prices for their products. Consequently their incomes have increased. These bene! ts, however, have occurred in the context of a restrictive Forestry Law. The provisions of the 1994 Law, and the complex policies and procedures regulating the creation and management of community forests, continue to bene! t elites at the expense of women and ethnic minorities. So long as the bodies governing community forests are dominated by wealthy, Bantu men, the ! nancial bene! ts that women, and Baka, will be able to derive from NTFPs will be greatly circumscribed.

Notably, a process for reforming the 1994 Forestry Law is currently underway. While the revised law has yet to be formalized, draft versions indicate some progress toward enabling local communities to bene! t more from NTFP commercialization. Drafts of the law do not, however, go so far as to accept civil society recommendations (e.g. Nguiffo et al., 2012) to return property rights over



forest areas to local communities, or to turn over management of community forests to local, democratically elected village government, as opposed to unelected GICs.

Notes1 Contrary to simplistic dichotomies that portray Bantu as “farmers” and Baka as

“hunter-gatherers,” in reality there has always been “movement between farming and hunting and gathering for both Baka and non-Baka” (Leonhardt 2006: 74). Bantu also often ventured into the forest to hunt or collect NTFPs, although they ranged over a much smaller expanse of forest territory than did the Baka. Baka have also increasingly taken up agriculture as a means of supplementing hunting and gathering.

2 The Baka were subject to a similar sedentarization initiative beginning in the 1960s, which resulted in their settling along roadsides, often next to Bantu villages (Oyono 2010).

3 It should be noted that, while project participants in Lomié and Yokadouma were almost exclusively Bantu, in Djoum, where participants were mostly Baka, education costs constituted a much smaller percentage of investment of income. In Djoum project participants spent about half of their income on food and household items like soap and kerosene, and another third of income on clothes.

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